Author: Steve

We got our Sandpipers fix again.  We crossed paths with fellow wanderers Lou and Alma, and Frank and Sandra.  We got to hang out together for a couple evenings and were even joined by Don and Vanessa from North Pole (some of us from Sandpipers also live in Alaska) for an extended happy hour.  They’ve all gone on their way now as we continue ours.

See the bright spot in the sky?

That’s the midday sun.  That’s as high as it gets.  The sun doesn’t come up, pass straight overhead, and then set.  It just gets up in the sky and goes around in circles!  (It’s not really that dark here in the middle of the day.  That’s just what I had to do with the lighting to keep the entire sky from washing out.)

We were out for a walk and this mew gull was acting like we should get our butts kicked and she was the one to do it.

A little looking around revealed the cause of her concern.

Two little baby gulls in the water!

We get to see gulls all winter in South Texas.  We don’t get to see them on their breeding grounds with babies!

See this thing on the forest floor?

It’s called a midden.  It’s a pile of stuff; rubble from a squirrel sitting on his favorite branch, tearing open cones for the seeds that are hidden there.  It looks like this has been a favorite place for quite a while!

Listen up.  I have a question.

Has anyone here been eating dirt?

And a black-capped chickadee.

Back to work.

I don’t work full-time, so usually I balance work with whatever else we’re doing, like birding or traveling.  Heading to Canada and realizing how much we would be out of touch, we declared those two weeks to be vacation and put an autoreply on the work email.  Well, fun’s over.  The two weeks are up, we’re back in the states, and back to reality.  Except for the walk in the boreal forest preserve…

It’s a harsh environment.

And versatile.

Sandhill cranes.

While we were driving across Yukon and Alaska along the Alaska Highway we noticed cable laying equipment working alongside the road.  Don’t know what that’s for.  Fiber optics?  Telecommunications?  I thought that was all done by satellites and towers now.  Laying cables seems so low-tech.  What do you suppose it could be for?

Here’s how our Canada map is doing.

We’ve been to a lot of the provinces now.  The right side still needs some work though.

And here’s our Yukon county map.

That’s it.  One county!  The first bird we reported in Yukon Territory filled in the entire thing!

Here is how we’re doing in Alaska so far.

Still got a ways to go there/here.

Good road headed west.  Straight and smooth.

Got to drive 65.  That lasted until Delta Junction (the end of the Alaska Highway).

The road got a little rough and winding from there to Fairbanks, but no problem.  We’re impressed with the number of roadside pullouts that are open to overnight stops.

Just like in Canada.

And here we are, at the end of the day, in Fairbanks!

The Great 2019 Alaska Trip map

No miles to go!

We’re now as far north as Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.  If we went as far south from our house as we’ve gone north, we’d be in southern Argentina, south of Australia and South Africa.

Sunset, 12:46am, tomorrow.  (It will be up again before 3am.)

Now, only 4,219 miles to get home to Sandpipers!

On the road again.  Across the border, back to the Yukon.  The drive from Skagway to Whitehorse is ridiculous.

Settled down for a night in the forest.

No update to the trip map.  Not enough internet.

The Great 2019 Alaska Trip map

Sunset tonight 11:36.  Pacific Time again.  Last light 1:10am.  The big change every day in how late the sun sets isn’t really related to the length of the day anymore.  We’re right at the longest day of the year.  Daylight only changes by a minute or so each day now.  The change is due to the curvature of the earth, and how we travel on it.  West in a time zone and north make a big difference at this latitude.

591 miles to Fairbanks.